'You're nicked!'

The constabulary’s current sport of nicking geriatric selebs may have its benefits both to the nickees and to Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne.

 

Remember Lord Hanningfield, the Leader of Essex County Council? He did a spot of porridge for being overly-creative with his exes.

 

He also won damages for wrongful arrest when the Old Bill pitched up at 0645 and felt his collar. The arrest was judged unlawful because he was perfectly willing to go down to the local nick voluntarily.

 

This case is much more important than it would seem, for this reason.

 

The PACE Code of Practice says that an arrest would not be necessary where the  officer is satisfied as to their identity and address and that they will attend a police station voluntarily.

 

Note that this is a code only. It doesn’t have the force of law.

 

But what the judgment tells us is that breach of the Code may lead to liability in a civil action for damages.

 

So there you have it.

 

If PC Turniptop bangs on your door in the wee small hours and says ‘You’re nicked, mate’, call your nearest ‘No win, no fee’ lawyer and await the cheque. The police won’t contest it. They almost always settle.

 

 

 

 

No joie, little vivre..............

Spare a thought for Johnny Frog.

 

France is in deep merde. ‘France faces bloody unrest’ goes the headline in the Sunday Times

 

A big shot in the Socialist Party warns that ‘violent upheaval’ is likely if Hollande doesn’t get his act together. Another lefty has threatened to ’sweep away the ruling elite’. The French have a history of this, in the Revolution of 1789, another in 1830, and 1848, and 1871, then 1958 which saw the collapse of the 4^th Republic.

 

De Gaulle was forced out by  ‘la chienlie’ of the unions and students, not through the ballot box.

 

A majority of the French consider their politicians are corrupt. The education system is collapsing; qualified young people are emigrating in droves, many to London.

 

Polls show the French to be down-in-the-dumps. There are more Eurosceptics in France than even in Britain. Only a tiny minority believes that France is on the right track. The President is the most unpopular ever. Increasingly, France is becoming ‘Club Med’ both economically and politically.

 

So what’s the problem?

 

It’s the economy, stoopid (mostly).

 

Unemployment is heading towards 11%, double that of Germany. The economy is in recession. The share of world exports has halved since France joined the Euro. The debt ratio is hitting 95% of GDP. French banks are seriously exposed to Club Med sovereign debt. There may well be a need for a bail-out. Government spending accounts for 56% of GDP. Unit labour costs have risen by 30% since the introduction of the Euro.

 

It seems to me that France’s problems are systemic.

 

To our eyes, France is horrendously dirigiste (significantly, there is no equivalent word in English). The tentacles of the State stretch everywhere. Economic problems have been concealed by subtle protectionism. State labour regulation discourages employers from taking on new staff, not least because it is almost impossible to sack anyone. ‘Social charges’ add no less than 50% to the wages bill (one reason why statistics show French industrial productivity to be good is because firms have a strong incentive to invest in machines, not people). The working week is 35 hours. Conforming to regulations is the path to madness.

 

The structure of Government has scarcely changed since Napoleon; there is still a complex web of local authorities that stretches down to a micro-level and gives municipal status to tiny communities, with a Mayor, 2 gendarmes and a part-time fire brigade. (Councillors carry an ID card; if they flash this to the cops a speeding fine is out of the question).

 

But there is no sign of reform. It is self-evident that public spending must be slashed. People will have to work longer, and yet Hollande has just reduced the retirement age. Major changes in the labour market are essential. Most of all, Government needs to rid itself of its anti-business culture.

 

Beneath it all lurks the Euro. The French may see their economic salvation in full fiscal and political union, but the expected benefits of monetary union have not materialised, so ‘more of the same’ could well be the triumph of hope over experience.

 

France is repairing the roof when it’s the foundations that  are rotten.

 

Plus ca change…….

 

Footnote: one thing to admire about the French; they fight their corner. No damn nonsense about Roma refugees! We are currently harbouring a Kenyan gangster who has admitted to between 200 and 400 murders – unsurprisingly, he can’t remember the precise number. We can’t deport him. In France, his feet wouldn’t have touched!

Stupidity: the new politics.....

The sacking of the Head of the IRS in the US got some cursory coverage here, but it did get me thinking about probably the most consistent thing in politics – stupidity. What made the IRS, a major organ of State, think that it had a role in stitching-up right wing political groups and how did they imagine they could possibly get away with it?

 

In recent years we have had political stupidity in spades, and it has cost countless thousands of lives.

 

At the beginning of 2003 in Jamaica, one of the locals asked me if the West was really serious about going to war. I assured him that it was all a bluff because there was no clear and present danger to the US and Europe. Why would we be stupid enough to get mired in the desert in a war against the only non-Islamic country in the region, opening the way to an actively hostile nationalist regime and putting ourselves in the cross-hairs of terrorism?

 

The same with Afghanistan.

 

I expected the Americans to take about 3 weeks to bomb the hell out of Al Qaeda, and push off once they had scarpered to the Yemen, Somalia and other insanitary regions of nowhere. It was beyond comprehension that our leaders would then engage in an unwinnable war against the Taliban, who had done us no harm.

 

Had these imbeciles not studied the Russian experience? Had they no knowledge of the massacres suffered by the British whenever they indulged in a cross-border adventure during the Raj? Had they not read ‘The Great Game’?

 

(Of course, there is nothing new in this? How did the leaders of Europe in 1914 come to stumble almost by accident into WW1? And once in, how come they allowed it to continue for four more years, almost wiping out European civilization in the process when it was obvious by 1915 that this first ‘industrial’ war would slaughter millions? And why did they then set out to ruin Germany at Versailles? Winston Churchill said at the time that they had just started WW2).

 

At least until recently, the one saving grace is that almost all politicians had experience outside politics. I believe it was the Blair administration that was the first Commons not to have had a war-veteran in it. In fact being an MP was almost a part-time job until Blair came along and created the abysmal ‘professional’ politician that we now know and despise.

 

Let’s have a look at the CVs of our latest crop.

 

Cameron: Scottish aristocrat descended from William IV on the wrong side of the blanket; wealthy family; Eton, Oxford, Tory Party, Parliament. That’s it!

 

Osborne: Irish aristocracy; public school; Oxford; Tory Party; Parliament.  Not much difference there, then!

 

Miliband: wealthy North London Jewish-Marxist family; comprehensive school; 1 year as a researcher for C4 News; Labour Party; Parliament. Life experience – imperceptible.

 

Clegg: wealthy banking family; public school; Cambridge; 1 year working for lobbying firm that represented Gaddafi; 5 years Eurocrat, MEP, Parliament. Earned scarcely a penny except from the public purse.

 

It’s hardly surprising, then, that our masters waste expensive Parliamentary time debating the Royal succession, which hopefully will not kick-in for another 50 years or so; ‘gay’ marriage, an oxymoron if ever there was; and, when the books won’t balance, increasing the foreign aid budget by 30%, laying-off 10,000 trained soldiers,  and at the same time taking on 5000 raw recruits.

 

I rest my case.

 

 

Breaking news.......

News is breaking all over the place.

 

 I will be most interested to follow the price fixing inquiry into Shell and BP and the associated involvement of Cargill and other firms in procuring and sitting on massive quantities of gasoline until prices are sufficiently high to then sell them.

 

We just caught 15 Palestinians in New York who have long been involved in cigarette smuggling. They were caught with hundreds of thousands of dollars stuffed in plastic bags. The caper involved buying smokes in Virginia where state tobacco taxes are low and flogging them in New York where they are high. There are also suggestions of links to Hamas and other Middle Eastern entities of unsavory repute.

 

O is generating more news than most countries combined.  His administration has intimidated Americans working in Benghazi during the terrorist attack on our Consulate there into not coming forth with their stories.

 

The IRS has intimidated right wing groups seeking non-profit company status by making them go through all sorts of delay tactics before being served.

 

The other big scandal involves the Justice Department's bugging the telephones and obtaining recordings of conversations of Associated Press journalists in Washington DC and other East Coast cities. Some of these conversations were held in the House of Representatives press gallery and may have involved members of congress.

 

O's first public reaction was to the IRS moves to target and delay right wing groups registering as non-profit organizations. He asked for the resignation of the acting IRS Commissioner; a person who was about to retire anyway. At least this scandal acted to move the mainstream media, ABC, CBS and NBC to abandon their liberal affiliations long enough to actually criticize the administration.

 

Idle youth.......

Unemployment in the 16 to 24 age group is a massive problem in which few seem interested, apart from the financial pages and the Economist, but if we are to avoid an increase in violent crime something must be done. Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal have already had rioting, and we had a dose of this in London, with looting and arson. Spain had high youth unemployment even when times were good; now it’s more than 56% and rising. In Greece it is around 60%. The EU average is 27%.

 

The irony is that this is happening at a time when it is reckoned that there are about 85 million job vacancies world-wide for high and medium  skill workers.

 

This gives us a sound clue as to one of the main reasons for the problem; it is the mismatch between education and employability. This falls roughly into two groups; those who leave school at the first opportunity with an educational standard so low that they are almost unemployable and those who graduate with liberal-arts degrees that are of little use to employers.

 

In a survey conducted by McKinsey, 70% of employers said that inadequate education was the main reason for the shortfall in skilled workers and exactly the same percentage of universities believe that they adequately  prepare graduates for the jobs market. Something is very wrong here.

 

There are other reasons.

 

When economies slow down, business will prefer non-recruitment to lay-offs.

 

So-called employment-protection legislation, rife in Europe, has the opposite effect; if it is difficult to fire staff, employers will be that  much more reluctant to take on new employees. High minimum wages are another disincentive, and trade unions have a vested interest in rues about hiring and firing but none in youth employment.

 

What is to be done?

 

It is clear that ‘hard’ subjects, such as science, technology, maths, physics and engineering should be the priorities in graduate studies.

 

There must be improved consultation and coordination between business and education providers, and between the responsible Ministries.

 

In companies’ own training programmes it might be necessary to have remedial sessions to bring new entrants up to speed in at least English (a disturbingly high proportion of school-leavers is functionally illiterate) and science.

 

There is a clear need to expand apprenticeship and technical education. At the same time the Government might give thought to abolishing the faux-universities that award useless degrees (one has just begun a degree course in heavy metal rock), and reverting them back to technical and vocational training. An interesting innovation is designing technical training around computer games.

 

In Germany, where youth unemployment is only 8%, the wages of former  long-term unemployed are subsidised for two years. My suggestion is that in the UK situation the unemployment benefit of the never-employed should be paid to the new employer for a similar period.

 

And it is abundantly obvious that EU countries must cut their way through the thicket of job-destroying legislation on employment-protection and equal rights, exempt small (less than 50 workers) firms from licence fees and other burdens, and get rid of the absurd Working Time Directive that penalises hard-workers.

 

It might soon be too late.

 

 

Europe: the elusive case for staying put.........

 

With my customary seeking after balance, I have been looking for the case for staying in the EU. It’s hard to find.

 

Boris Johnson and Alistair Campbell have been giving views in the DT and the Times respectively.

 

 

First, Bojo.

 

Foreign direct investment. There may be a risk (though this is far from proven) that international companies and funds could be put off from investing in the UK by the notion that Britain has somehow cut itself off from a giant European market.

 

We may be putting UK firms at a long-term disadvantage if we are no longer able to influence the setting of standards and regulations in Brussels.

 

Global influence. The EU is arguably better placed to strike trade deals with the US, or China, than the UK on its own, though this proposition is plainly untested, and the idea of an EU “Common Foreign Policy” is plainly a joke. Where was the EU on Iraq, or Libya? What, come to that, is the EU position on the Falklands?

 

Perception of UK. It is often said that our strategic significance for the Americans or the Chinese depends on our membership of the EU; though, again, this is untested. More generally, there is a risk that leaving the EU will be globally interpreted as a narrow, xenophobic, backward-looking thing to do.

 

Next, Campbell.

 

He says that it is estimated (by whom?) that 3 million jobs depend upon on trade with the EU. However, it is correct, as Boris says, that we would have to comply with EU regulations, without being able to influence them, when exporting to Europe. This rather demolishes the argument that Norway does pretty well trading with the EU without being bound by it.

 

He says that there are cases in which pooling of sovereignty makes sense and can bring rewards; and that being in the EU adds to our influence in the world.

 

And that’s about it; half a ‘comment’ page of waffle.

 

The jobs argument seems to rest on the ludicrous proposition that we would lose all our EU trade. He does make one sound point, however, which is that Britain’s foreign-owned car industry came here specifically to get a foothold on the European market. Would we continue to attract such FDI?

 

He gives no examples of pooled sovereignty and I am not aware of any outside the EU.

 

As to influence in the world, Boris has already rubbished that notion.

 

The main issues raised by both sides to date are largely financial and economic. Some  are fallacious, spurious or not evidence-based. For example, does Darling seriously imagine that Toyota, Honda and Nissan would be priced out of Europe by punitive tariffs? Protectionism always leads to retaliation, and loss of the British market would have a serious impact on France’s already fragile motor industry.

 

And financial issues tend to favour the ‘outs’; the EU is a by-word for excessive expenditure, inefficiency, waste and corruption.

 

But to my way of thinking, this is the wrong argument. It is aimed too much at the ‘what’s in it for me’ tendency. There should be more stress on British sovereignty, on the supremacy of Parliament and the Courts, control of our borders, the abuses stemming from the wretched EAW, the intervention of the ECJ in both criminal and civil law,  the constant meddling in our private lives and in matters which should not be the concern of politicians, such as  making women pay the same premiums as men for car insurance and annuities even though they are a lower risk, regulating the cleanliness of our beaches, and countless other absurdities.

 

The key issue is libertarian; it’s about democracy, not rule by unelected officials based in a foreign country.

 

Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

 

Two years notice is needed. Perhaps Cameron should give notice now, so that Britain can get out immediately after the Referendum. That should concentrate minds in Brussels.

Yewtree: money for old grope!

Are there any 75 year-old selebs left who have not yet been arrested? The Old Bill got a result with Stuart Hall but it is scraping the barrel now; it has been investigating a complaint that will not lead to an arrest on account of the old boy being somewhat dead.

 

This is not as absurd as it seems; after all Savile was dead the last time I looked, and already claims against his estate are being readied.

 

Step forward the ‘no win, no fee’ lawyers and the cheque-book waving Red Tops (current rate between £10,000 and £20,000  depending of the fame of the seleb, according to Carol Sarler in The Times).

 

Very conveniently, she sets out the tariff and tells the girls how to get rich. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has a tariff. For non-penetrative sex under 18, it’s £3,300, a bit steep for a grope. A second contact (the other boob?) will net £4,400. Penetrative sex is £13,500 and accompanying mental anguish raises this to £27,000. It’s enough to make a high-maintenance hooker weep. There is no tariff for de-flowering, possibly because of lack of precedent.

 

At this distance in time, it would be almost impossible to get a criminal conviction due to lack of any forensic evidence or corroboration, and the effluxion of time But the really big money will come from civil actions.

 

None of these cases will ever reach court. It’s a win-win situation for the plaintiff. She will not have to produce a smidgen of evidence to get an out-of-court settlement that could run to thousands of £’s. The Savile estate and the BBC have already set aside large sums as contingency. There are about 1,400 complaints in the Savile case (but none of unwonted pregnancy as far as we know), so we must be looking at compensation running to millions – from  us, the licence payers, of course.

 

Morecambe and Wise are also dead, otherwise they might be facing complaints from sensitive souls of mental trauma for appearing in bed together before 12 million people.

 

Quote of the week: ‘Unlike that lot in Westminster who have never done a decent days work in their lives, I worked damn hard in the City for 20 years. At least I did until lunchtime!’ – Nigel Farage.

After Brixit............what then?

Lord Lawson has caused a kerfuffle amongst the chattering classes by coming out unequivocally for a Brixit from theEU.

 

His views command respect. He was the UK’s best Chancellor, a formidable intellect, and a hugely experienced political figure.

 

He sets out with great clarity all the reasons why the EU is an abomination, and perhaps it is now a task for that other Nigel to fill in the exact detail of all the costs, financial and political, of belonging to this failing  edifice.

 

What Lawson does not give us is an assessment of the consequences of leaving. The pro-EU spinners are at it already with half-truths and untruths, their usual stock-in-trade.

 

For example, there was an ‘expert’ on Sky’s Randall positing that exit would be disastrous for our trade with Europe, that more than half our export trade is with the EU, and that we could expect import barriers to be raised against us.

 

Now, you don’t have to be a leading economist to see that this is nonsense.

 

A huge amount of exports to Europe are nothing of the kind. They are trans-shipments through European ports to their final destinations world-wide. Instead of 50% going to EU, the likely figure is not much more than 30%.

 

The UK has always run a balance-of-trade deficit. Is it remotely likely that European business would wish to put that at risk by imposing punitive tariffs? Two can play at that game. UKIP must embark on a vigorous campaign to set out the post-exit scenario, and neutralise pro-Europe propaganda.

 

A vital component of this must be to look at the broader picture. The world is evolving into free trade areas. ASEAN will soon become a free-trade area. The US is in current negotiations with the EU, Japan, and South America, and there’s the BRICS.

 

So where does the UK go? Part of Cameron’s promised negotiations should be to get a FTA with the EU if Brixit happens.

 

The US would almost certainly be a willing partner.

 

But we already have the structure in place for our own FTA. It is the Commonwealth. Africa is the great growth area of the second half of the century, and it would leap at the chance to export to Commonwealth countries duty-free. India is already an upcoming economic ‘tiger’. Australia has one of the world’s largest export-orientated economies.

 

In former times we had ‘Imperial Preference’. It may now be due for resurrection as the Commonwealth Common Market.

 

Welcome to the CCM!

 

MPs demand cheaper booze ......... for themselves!

Our politicians live in a parallel universe – of that there is no doubt, no possible doubt whatever!

 

A short while back they were mulling over a minimum price for alcohol in order to combat so-called ‘binge drinking’. The proposal would have made no impact on hardened drinkers; they would simply spend more of their benefit money on a drop of the hard stuff. Of course, it would have done wonders for the bottom line at Diageo and other producers, but that was not quite the point.

 

And it would have penalised the many for the sins of the few.

 

The problem has in any event been grossly over-hyped. In fact, alcohol sales have shown a substantial decline over the past few years, especially amongst the 16 to 24 years age group who are those most likely to get wasted of a Saturday night, although in these times there are more than enough reasons to take a little of what you fancy.

 

But if Cameron really wishes to impose some control, the simple answers is to tax off-sales so that supermarkets will not be able to sell booze at a lower price than bottled water and thus drive pubs out of business.

 

And yet, what do we have now?

 

In these austerity times, MPs are calling for lower prices in the House of Commons bars. Their catering is already subsidized to the tune of nearly £6 million a year, and they pay a good deal less for their drinks than in any of the Westminster pubs.

 

In my book, if binge drinking needs to be controlled a good place to start would be the House of Commons bars.

 

 

 

Obama: all hat and no cows!

The case against O is becoming stronger and stronger.

 

His political narrative has suddenly lost its flare and, as one member of the press noted, he appears to be losing his juice. O's visit to Mexico was a non-event. He ended up insinuating that the current round of violence in Mexico is due partly to the supply of guns from the USA. You can imagine what the right wing press did with that statement. Left to the spinners, it is all our fault that Mexico is dominated by ruthless gangsters, drug runners and kidnappers.

 

His reaction to the Sequester also has him losing popularity.

 

Charles Krauthammer recently noted, O never thought the Sequester would go through, so he called the Republican's bluff and lost. Worse, for him, nothing happened and we did not go down the proverbial economic drain. In retaliation, and perhaps to emphasize a losing point, O decided to save money by suspending tours of the White House.

 

That must have saved the taxpayer a few thousand dollars. More recently, he ordered air traffic controllers to be furloughed. After a day of serious flight cancellations, the Republicans quickly passed legislation to fund the air traffic controllers thereby effectively negating O's furlough caper. Flights are back on schedule and O has egg all over his face.

 

The spectacular failure of a very weak and ineffective gun control bill sponsored by O took another string from his bow. It may well be that the current interest in passing some form of Immigration Bill may meet the same end.

 

Were O from Texas, we might say he is all hat and has no cows. He is cool, but without content and vision. He has built up minorities, especially African Americans to the point where their rising expectations may well be reduced to rising frustrations and worse. All in all, O is in the political doldrums without much hope of a good wind.

 

Nor did the success of Congress in reintroducing inquiries into the Benghazi incident help O's declining popularity.

 

The majority of Americans believed that there were not more than a handfull of Americans at the Consulate when it was attacked. Now we understand there were about 30, some of whom were wounded and are still recuperating. Their silence, it is now revealed, has not been voluntary. It was engineered by State and Defense Department personnel who threatened the survivors with seriously reduced job security should they take it upon themselves to tell the rest of the story.

 

It is incidents such as these that dramatically erode public confidence in not only the O administration, but American politics in general. As long as our leaders are willing to lie and intimidate to preserve their power and status, we as a country are worse off. O has some big questions to answer in this regard, and so does Hillary, but everyone doubts they ever will.

 

Rant!

The ‘establishment’ – that is politicians of all stripes and at all levels; ‘authority’, the media; all intent on treating us as if we were in Primary Year 1.

 

Let’s take the media first.

 

I remember when TV commercials featured top stars such as Nigel Hawthorne, Joan Collins, and many others. They had sound production values. They were frequently more entertaining than the actual programmes.

 

Remember Pau Hogan as the coarse Ocker let loose in England? In one, he was at the Opera, Don Giovanni. In the opening scene, DG is climbing out of a lady’s boudoir window trouserless. ‘ Strewth’, bellows Hogan,  ‘ he’s forgotten his strides!’.

 

Some years later I was at a gala performance in the presence of Queen Margaretha or some such. As the scene opened, I couldn’t resist it. But I hadn’t appreciated that my voice carries. The entire Upper Circle gave me a dirty look. Nobody laughed, miserable gits.

 

One of my favourites in South Africa was one for Nandos, the fast food chain.

 

It featured an old lady – hat, long dress, parasol -  waiting for the lift. As the doors opened some of the local rugby team barged past her so that she was last to enter. The doors closed. Then there was the sound of an explosive fart. The doors reopened and the lads all rushed out again, leaving the old lady standing alone with a big smile. No dialogue!

 

That commercial must be at least 20 years old, but I still remember both it and the product. Good advertising!

 

Today we have ads that  feature hardly any humans, slebs or not, except of course for the intensely annoying fat Welsh tenor. Instead they feature cartoon characters aimed at 6-year olds, and rat-like creatures speaking in a Slavic accent for no obvious reason. The Wonga add features two old cartoon characters getting stitched up for a loan at 3000% per annum. And apparently you can play a horn concerto on the exhaust pipe of a Ford Focus.

 

TV News? I’ve given up apart from Jeff Randall, Quest and AJ. Even with Randall we are short changed. His programme was 30 minutes. Then it went to one hour. I put the timer on it last night. JR was on camera for 28 minutes.

 

News bulletins have become Red Tops with moving pictures, often leading with the latest deeds or misdeeds of a soccer player when all mayhem is breaking loose in the world.

 

And we have such nonsense as all news being blacked out in favour of continuous  coverage of the demise of one Michael Jackson.

 

Last night Sky News solemnly reported that the BBC had announced that it would not further employ a former presenter who had just pleaded guilty to monkey business with females 40-odd years ago. He is 83!

 

Programmes? We have Sky. It transmits about 150 channels, but considerably reduced when you discount the sport and film pay channels, the pop ‘music’ channels and the 38 ‘adult’ channels. In the remainder we are often reduced to watching a DVD because there is absolutely nothing to watch on TV. Of course, there is always ‘On the Buses’ which is just as dire as it was 40 years ago, or ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ which goes out on the Documentaries channel.

 

Much of the entertainment is clearly aimed at viewers with single-figure IQs.

 

The print media take us all to be fools. Old broadsheets have now become tabloids, dumbed down so much that they rival the Red Tops, and as a consequence they have tumbling circulations.

 

Perhaps we are not all fools after all.  

 

As for politicians, lying has always been part of their stock-in-trade but now it has become a profession in its own right, except its practitioners are dubbed ‘spin doctors’. Just about the only thing that politicians genuinely believe is that we will believe them.